Ashley Parham died in 2009 after her airbag exploded in her Honda Accord.

Motoring

Airbag death so horrific ‘we thought she’d been shot’

by Benedict Brook

28th Feb 2018 3:55 PM

IF YOU want a reason to return your car as part of the massive 2.3 million vehicle recall, look no further than 18-year-old student Ashley Parham.

She wasn't even driving fast when she died in 2009, just days after her high school graduation.

Ms Parham is likely the first victim of the deadly malfunctioning airbags made by Japanese manufacturer Takata.

A former student, community volunteer and cheerleader at an Oklahoma high school, Ms Parham was on her way to pick up her brother from football practice on May 27 of that year in her 2001 Honda Accord. She was wearing a seatbelt and wasn't speeding as she drove around the car park looking for a space, according to local TV station News 9.

She bumped another car, a relatively minor prang, but nonetheless the airbag in the steering wheel inflated. As it did so, it threw metal pieces at such tremendous force towards Ms Parham that one hit the teen's neck slicing open her carotid artery. She bled to death in her seat.

Ashley Parham died in 2009 after her airbag exploded in her Honda Accord.

Local Police Chief Brandon Clabes told Reuters her injuries were so catastrophic that doctors who treated Ms Parham initially "thought she might have been shot", .

Mr Clabes said the car park ding "was just a minor traffic accident ... that most people just walk away from with no injuries at all."

In the nine years since, a further 22 people have died and 230 have been injured in incidents linked to the Takata airbags. When Ms Parham died, affected Hondas were already being recalled but her model would only be added to the list following her death.

A deployed airbag seen in a 2001 Honda Accord. Picture: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The Federal Government has announced a recall of millions of cars fitted with the airbags, including those made by Ford, Holden and Volkswagen, who will be forced to replace the bags free of charge.

"There were no windows broken ... that would cause sharp glass to penetrate a human's body. Therefore, the force of the crash was not significant enough to cause great bodily harm to any occupant in both vehicles."

It looked like Ms Tran had been stabbed, reported the New York Times. Initially, police looked into why someone might murder the Vietnamese immigrant, who never regained consciousness and later died.

It was only when, a week later, a letter from Honda came through the post asking Ms Tran to get her car's airbags fixed that police realised that was the cause.

In July 2017, the list of Takata tragedies, which had hit the US and Malaysia, finally hit Australian shores.

A police investigation found that his death was "likely due to a fault in the airbag."

A 2017 voluntary recall of Australian cars fitted with airbag was a damp squib with a million potentially deadly vehicles still on the road.

In 2015, US Senator Bill Nelson points to the injury on a victim who was hit by shrapnel when a car's Takata airbag inflated. Picture: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

"The previous voluntary recall has not been satisfactory overall and it's the safety of all Australians which is the first priority of this government," Assistant Minister to the Treasurer Michael Sukkar said on Wednesday.

The Government said 25 car types were affected from state of the art Teslas to luxury BMWs and runabout Skodas.

Takata, the company behind the airbags, started off as a seat belt manufacturer before moving into the bags in the 1980s. It then started work on manufacturing the intricate and high explosive devices that inflated the bags within a thousandth of a second, should there be a crash.

According to Honda, and reported by Reuters, there were question marks about quality control at Takata and how it was storing chemicals used in the airbags as far back as 2002. An "unusual airbag deployment" occurred in 2004, the car maker said.

A Takata airbag inflates after it was removed during a US recall in May 2015. Picture: EPA/Jeff Kowalsky

Long term exposure to moisture and temperature fluctuations could degrade the chemical propellant used to deploy the airbags.

The propellant in Takata devices was made from ammonium nitrate, a volatile explosive often used in mining. Another agent could stabilise the propellant but this was not fitted to their airbag systems.

Those without the added chemical were prone to inflate with such force that a metal canister in the device could be shredded, scooped up and ejected in the process. Those injured have reported fragments in the neck, chest and eyes.